Stirring the simmering 'designer baby' pot

From genetic and genomic testing to new techniques in human assisted reproduction, various technologies are providing parents with more of a say about the children they have and "stirring the pot of 'designer baby' concerns," writes Thomas H. Murray, President Emeritus of The Hastings Center, in a commentary in Science.

Murray calls for a national conversation about how much discretion would-be parents should have. "Preventing a lethal disease is one thing; choosing the traits we desire is quite another," he writes.

He discusses public hearings two weeks ago by the United States Food and Drug Administration to consider whether to permit human testing of a new method of assisted reproduction – mitochondrial manipulation – that would prevent the transmission of certain rare diseases and perhaps address some causes of female infertility. At issue is the safety of the technology, as well as its ethical implications.

Mitochondrial manipulation creates an embryo with the nuclear DNA from the prospective mother and father (which contains most of the genetic material) and the mitochondrial DNA (containing 37 genes) from a donor without mitochondrial defects. Among the ethical concerns is that daughters produced by this procedure could pass down the mitochondrial DNA to their children. "Up to now, the United States has not allowed such genetic changes across generations," Murray writes.

He says that the FDA's discussion is the latest development that "tapped into a simmering controversy over what it means to have a child in an era of increasing convergence among genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies." Those technologies include preimplantation genetic diagnosis (genetic analysis of embryos before implantation via in vitro fertilization) and prenatal screening to detect health problems in the fetus, including the prospects of a blood test of a pregnant woman to screen fetal DNA in her blood.

"Of all the possible choices prospective parents might make, sex selection for non-medical purposes has prompted the strongest policy response, "Murray writes. "It is prohibited in at least 36 countries, but not in the United States." He notes that "conflicts over the legal and moral status of embryos and fetuses have discouraged American legislators from proposing sensible regulations, lest they be drawn in to the abortion debate."

The absence of federal legislation has left the regulation of sex selection up to professional societies. But they have different guidelines, reflecting "clashing ethical frameworks for thinking about parenthood in the genomic era."

Murray calls for a national conversation about current and emerging technologies shaping the choices that parents have, beginning with an examination by the U.S. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. "It will not be easy to avoid the quicksand of the abortion debate," he writes, "but it would be a great public service to provide a sober assessment of the choices that would-be parents increasingly face, and to encourage a respectful dialogue about the meaning of parenthood and the worth of a child so that parents and children can flourish together."

Related Stories

(AP)—Britain is inviting the public to weigh in on draft rules allowing scientists to create embryos using DNA from three people—a man and two women—to prevent mothers from passing on potentially fatal genetic diseases.

(AP)—Genetic experts cautioned the U.S. government Tuesday that it could take decades to confirm the safety of an experimental fertilization technique that would create babies from the DNA of three people, with the aim ...

(AP)—Britain may allow a controversial technique to create babies using DNA from three people, a move that would help couples avoid passing on rare genetic diseases, the country's top medical officer says.

Britain's fertility regulator says it has found broad public support for in vitro fertilization techniques that allow babies to be created with DNA from three people for couples at risk of passing on potentially fatal genetic ...

(AP)—Genetic experts are warning the U.S. government that it could take decades to confirm the safety of an experimental technique that would create babies from the DNA from three people, with the aim of preventing children ...

Recommended for you

A team of Yale researchers has developed a simple method that could significantly reduce the time and cost of probing gene expression on a large scale. The findings were published March 2 in the journal Nature Me ...

A new genetic discovery in the field of Huntington's disease (HD) could mean a more effective way in determining severity of this neurological disease when using specific treatments. This study may provide insight for treatments ...

Does the child of a person with a heritable form of cancer have the right to access their parent's genetic information after death? What if no consent was ever established? In the March 2 issue of Trends in Molecular Medicine, biomed ...

Analyzing a puzzling multisystem disorder in three children, genetic experts have identified a new syndrome, shedding light on key biological processes during human development. The research also provides ...

Prostate cells that look normal under the microscope may be hiding genetic mutations that could develop into cancer, prompting new ways to improve treatment for the disease, according to research published ...

In an advance that may potentially lead to new treatments for parasitic hookworms, scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Cornell University have sequenced the genome of the hookworm, ...

User comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.